Content generated by an LLM with human direction.

Files, watching, and auto-reload

The rule

When you add a file to a deck — an image, PDF, demo HTML, Jupyter notebook, video, or .vtt captions — Eigendeck does two things at once:

1. Embeds the bytes in the .eigendeck file, so the deck is self-contained (hand it to someone without your figs/ folder and everything still renders).
2. Remembers where it came from (the source path) and watches that file. Edit the source on disk — re-run the script that generates a plot, re-export a video, tweak a demo — and the slide updates automatically.

So a file asset is both embedded (portable) and linked (live). You get the LaTeX/Beamer workflow (regenerate → it refreshes) without the fragility (the deck never breaks if the source file is gone).

The two mental models

• Beamer-style (the default). Your figures come from scripts. Keep the deck open, re-run the script, and the new plot appears. Watching is on.
• PowerPoint-style. You want the bytes frozen at insert time — later edits to the source shouldn't leak in. Turn watching off (per asset, per deck, or globally) and the deck owns a snapshot.

Both always render the asset's current bytes; there's no per-slide version pinning. (Some inserts freeze automatically — e.g. embedding an SVG's external images severs the link on purpose.)

Turning watching on/off

Watching resolves through a cascade — most specific wins:

1. Per asset — the Watch checkbox in the Inspector's Asset section (select the element). Unchecking it freezes that one asset.
2. Per deck — a presentation-level override (Presentation properties).
3. Global — Settings → Auto-reload assets (the factory default is on).

An asset can only opt out below what the deck/global allows — it can't force watching on when the deck has it off.

Reload from disk

The Inspector's Asset section also has Reload from disk now (one-shot) and a version history (revert to an earlier embedded version). Reverting writes a new "current" version in the deck — it never edits the file on disk.

Notebooks: editing takes control

A notebook is special: you can edit its cells in the deck (the recording — see Notebooks). To protect those edits, making a notebook editable turns watching off for its .ipynb — a disk reload won't clobber what you typed. This is sticky: turning editable back off leaves watching off; re-enable Watch explicitly when you want it to follow the file again. The asset keeps its source link, so Reload from disk still works (and it discards your in-deck cell edits, taking the file as-is).

(For videos, both the movie file and an attached captions .vtt are watched independently — see Videos.)

Snapshots for export and print

Live elements — demos, notebooks, and videos — only render while their slide is on screen, so a deck you open and export without clicking through every slide can have gaps (placeholder boxes) in its exports, the print view, and the sidebar thumbnails. Two File menu commands bake the live elements to static images ("snapshots") that the deck keeps:

• Generate Missing Snapshots — captures only the live elements that don't have a current snapshot yet. Run it before exporting a deck you haven't clicked all the way through. It's idempotent — a second run with nothing missing does nothing.
• Refresh All Snapshots — re-captures every live element (use it after you change a demo/notebook or switch the deck theme).

Both step through the slides behind a progress overlay and then restore your place. The three export commands — File → Export to HTML, Export Printable HTML (one slide per page, for the browser's Print-to-PDF), and Export to PDF (Screenshots) — plus the sidebar thumbnails all read these snapshots, so a snapshotted deck exports with real demo/notebook/video images instead of placeholders.

Why

Embedding makes decks portable; watching makes them live — most tools force you to pick one. Eigendeck does both because the common case is "my plots come from code and I tweak them up to talk time," and the failure case ("the script broke an hour before the talk") is covered by the embedded bytes + version history, not by hoping the file on disk is good.